Investors need reassurance

Last month’s general election has made people more nervous than ever

ON A thundery Saturday in late September, vehicles were banned from the bustling boulevards of Guinea’s capital, Conakry. Youngsters turned the streets into improvised football pitches, as adults queued patiently to vote in the country’s first general election since 2002. It was a jovial and generally peaceful day. But it was followed by a nerve-racking delay of nearly three weeks before the electoral commission at last released provisional results on October 18th. Accusations of fraud have been flying. Guinea’s politics is as turbulent as ever, and mistrust is rife. Many now fear that violence may erupt during and after the presidential election due in 2015.

President Alpha Condé’s Rally of the Guinean People (RPG) topped the poll with 53 seats, just short of an absolute majority. Its closest challenger, Cellou Dalein Diallo’s Union of Democratic Forces of Guinea, came second, with 37 seats. A party led by Sidya Touré, a former prime minister, which was part of the previous ruling coalition, came a distant third. The rest of the 114 seats went to smaller parties. Mr Condé needs the support of four more MPs to have a working majority.

A broad range of foreign election observers noted “breaches and irregularities” deemed significant enough to cast doubt on the election’s legitimacy. Opposition parties, claiming fraud on a massive scale, have asked the Supreme Court to annul the results. The ruling RPG, for its part, has challenged the outcome in some opposition strongholds.

The vote was at first set to take place within months of Mr Condé’s presidential victory in 2010, but was repeatedly delayed. Trust between the opposition parties and the government fizzled, leading to lethal street protests. The row over the provisional results has now raised fears of renewed violence. An opposition spokesman, Aboubacar Sylla, says his party has little faith in the Supreme Court, whose judges are said by some to be close to Mr Condé. The opposition has yet to decide what to do if the court upholds the provisional results.

Guinea is one of the world’s leading producers of aluminium ore and has large deposits of iron, gold and diamonds. But thanks to decades of dictatorship and misgovernment, such riches have done little for ordinary Guineans, 60% of whom, according to UN reports, live in dire poverty. The country has been without an elected parliament since a military coup in 2008. The ensuing instability has made foreign investors nervous. The latest election was meant to allay their fears. Alas, it has yet to do so.